Name: Alex Chang
Job Title and Current Employer: Researcher at Dr. Marina Sharifi’s Lab in the UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC)
Home Town: Austin, TX
Current Location: Madison, WI
Short Description of your time in the Bacteriology MS Program:
I pursued the research track as a research assistant in the joint lab of Drs. Tim Donohue and Dan Noguera within the Wisconsin Energy Institute. There, I used and conducted experiments with bioreactors and small scale batches with our genetically engineered strain of Novosphingobium aromaticivorans. Our soil-dwelling alpha-proteobacterium was modified to accumulate the platform chemical 2-pyrone-4,6-dicarboxylic acid (PDC), a precursor for various bioplastics, from depolymerized lignin monomers as part of a pipeline to expand the potential for sustainable bioproducts from energy crops like poplar and switchgrass. I investigated the productivity and potential limiting factors involved with upscaling our batch feed cultures into a continuous-feed recycling bioreactor that would be important for industrial scale use of our strain and PDC production.
MS Degree Received in: August 2023
Describe your career path from graduate school to your current position.
I went into my Masters believing microbiology and biotech research was going to be my future path, and I learned a tremendous amount from my time in the Donohue and Noguera lab as a grad student both academically and professionally. It also taught me what I desired in a long term career that I was not getting in that field of research, which led me towards a job in cancer biology. Ultimately, doing my Master’s in Bacteriology was invaluable to me and I still apply many techniques and approaches in my current job. I am hoping to return to graduate school next cycle for a PhD in cancer biology or a similar program to pursue a career in research with clinical trials and to understand what drives aggressive and metastatic resistant cancers.
Describe a “day in the life” of your current job.
My main job at my position is working with aggressive metastatic and resistant breast and prostate cancer from patients at UW and other national healthcare institutions to better understand the mechanisms of resistance and analyzing through our pipeline how to best predict response to future treatment. From processing blood samples to preparing cDNA libraries, every day and week is a mix of tasks and duties that requires flexibility, communication, and teamwork to make sure we are collectively ensuring our best work and most accurate results.
What do you like best and what do you find challenging about your current job?
I find my job incredibly rewarding knowing that many samples we process and analyze for months and years come from local people and patients who trust the UW healthcare system and research institutions and wish to contribute to the body of science for innovation and future patients who will have a better chance of survival and a cure thanks to their contributions. The most challenging aspect of my job is untangling and learning the complex cancer biology and population variability that surround certain issues we face across our research and pipeline. It can be difficult to know when a new unexpected result is a processing error, an individual patient’s variation, or a rare drug response that may be worth investigating. It can take months to unravel these questions and communication across labs and people is critical in these moments, so having frequent lab meetings and group discussions are vital to our work and the most challenging moments.
What is your best piece of advice for current graduate students preparing for their careers?
Always stay open minded! Once I realized that professorship and academia was not my goal, I felt lost and unsure of my next step. Going to panels and talks by people outside of my initial interests opened my mind to more opportunities beyond academia and emphasized how often people forage their own paths or take a few detours before finding their way. Taking a step back every once in a while to check in and widening the scope of possibilities for yourself now and further down the line can be insightful for what you wish to achieve professionally.
What extracurriculars were you involved in during your time?
I loved volunteering my time with Badger Volunteers each semester, I felt emotionally fulfilled directly helping my local communities while also taking my mind off research and still feeling productive. I also enjoyed going to some graduate specific campus organizations and events such as the Mentorship Opportunities in Science & Agriculture for Individuals of Color (MOSAIC) and Qgrads, an organization for queer graduate students to connect.
What are your interests outside of work?
Currently I am expanding my fiber craft skills into embroidery, hand sewing, and decorative mending; this mostly involves hoarding piles of yarn, threads, and potential projects that will take years to actually complete. I also enjoy exploring the local music scene, art, and niche events such as the Wisconsin Music Fest and Furby art gallery. I also want to get back into regularly volunteering with local communities and organizations.